Crowned (Legends of the Hallows #4)

Chapter One

Malachi

Everything is wrong. Food is tasteless, laughter is empty, and sunshine cannot chase the chill that her absence has left in each of our souls.

I eyeball the fateful sword lying on the table with disdain.

Worthy? What a joke. Why, Daphne? Without me, they could continue to live because they would have you at their side.

Now we are fractured, broken, and dangerous men who could level the kingdom they protect just to feel something, anything but this gaping hole in our chests.

Nash strides from his chambers into the living area and skims his gaze over Excalibur with a snarl. He blames me, as do all of my brothers.

“You aren’t ready,” he snaps. “Get it together, Malachi.”

I lean back on the sofa and fold my arms. “I don’t want to attend.”

He drags a hand through his hair with a low growl. “None of us wishes to attend, but it must be done.”

“Can I also give it a miss?” Hart drawls as he joins us, dressed in full finery. I want to tear his clothes to shreds to join the devastation of my soul. The capons totter after him, pecking at his shiny boots. They miss her too.

Nash shakes his head. “It can’t be a coronation without a king.”

“The coronation part is hours away,” Hart says with a frown at the capons. “They don’t need me for the celebration beforehand, only the dreaded crowning.”

Nash turns from us to stare out of the huge arched windows. The sun is still shining, but by midnight, our kingdom will have claimed its new heartbroken king.

“What he said,” I mutter. “Plus, Theo gets a pass.”

“On account of his dragon,” Nash grumbles. I’ve never been jealous of Theo’s dragon before, but losing myself and escaping from this suffocating weight would be seductive. I don’t blame him.

A rap sounds at the door, and Hart swings it open. Gwyneth stalks inside, her eyes red and swollen. The sister of the woman I loved is struggling. We all are, and we should lean on each other to heal. But I don’t want to heal; I want the pain. I want the agony. Anything but this hollowness.

Charming enters, followed by the broom, shuts the door, and leans against the wall. His face is tight as he studies the surviving Stone sister with worry. Not for the first time, I debate running Charming through with the sword I’d been gifted. I think Daphne would approve.

However, we never would have crossed paths with the woman who stole our hearts without him. No, that’s not true. We were fated to meet Daphne. If not through the Cinderella narrative, then another would have brought us together.

“Are you ready?” Gwyneth asks. Her voice is scratchy, like she’s been screaming into a void for days or even weeks. I understand the feeling.

Hart shakes his head, drops into the armchair, and braces his elbows on his knees. “Explain to me again why we are bowing to a narrative when we know you can rewrite our futures.”

“Because I’m still coming to terms with what it means to be a Grimm, and I’m trying to understand the consequences of losing her.” Gwyneth’s voice cracks.

“Daphne,” Nash says with a glance over his shoulder. “Don’t diminish her by omitting her name.”

“I’m not,” Gwyneth snaps. Charming shifts and clasps her hand in his.

Wait. When did that happen? “But saying her name steals a piece of my soul each time, and there’s very little left of me.

Theo’s retreated into his dragon to cope, while you’ve buried yourself in books that hold no answers to what you want to undo, Nash.

” She points at me. “And you’ve taken to fighting anyone who breathes in your direction with your fists. ”

I clench my hands, relishing the sting across my knuckles as they split. The pain grounds me. “Fair enough,” I whisper. “We are all doing our best.”

Sir Sweeps-A-Lot brushes against the hem of Gwyneth’s stunning silver dress. She doesn’t even register him. He’s looking for comfort, but without Daphne, he’s neither a gift nor a tool to work the narratives with. He’s as lost as the rest of us.

“So for now, we bend to the will of the Idols,” she commands. “Because I don’t have it in me to fight right now. Let’s not start a war.”

A war sounds good. Loud, busy, consuming.

The tall, cracked mirror we’ve leaned against the wall shimmers, and Eron appears. That’s all this party of doom needs.

“Where is the fairest?” he starts. Sometimes we get Eron, the King of the Land of Reflection, and the man Daphne’s actions resurrected.

But he often doesn’t remember she is dead, and then we have to witness his breakdown.

It doesn’t get any easier over time. Other times, we get the guy buried under a cloak of guilt for his part in everything that happened.

I can sympathize. I prefer the latter because recounting her death and watching the shock penetrate is cruel for both us and him.

“She’s dead,” Gwyneth informs him. Gone is the patience she addressed him with the first few days.

“I can’t witness this again,” Hart snaps as he stands and strides out of the room, likely on the hunt for something to maim and kill. Not without me, brother. I jump to my feet to chase after him, but Nash grabs my shoulder.

“Let him be.”

I shrug him off. “I am not tempering his actions. I want to join him.”

Nash studies me for a long moment before jerking his head in acceptance. Good, because I’m not afraid to beat his ass if that’s my only option.

Gwyneth recounts that fateful night weeks ago to a crestfallen Eron, Charming’s hand still clutching hers. I catch his gaze and communicate my willingness to end him if I suspect for a tempo that he’s taking advantage of a grieving woman.

He nods once in understanding. I hate him, but she’s all alone in this realm without her sister. At least I have my brothers.

Entering the corridor, I swing my head to the left and right. Where did you go, brother?

I turn right and hurry my steps. The castle bustles with staff readying for the huge celebration of Hart’s coronation and the final claiming of the throne. They press themselves against the wall as I pass. When did I become the scary one? Must be the violence driving my steps.

They shift their eyes ahead, meaning I’m on the right path. The scrape of metal against stone reaches me, and I know where he’s going. Wait for me.

I follow him through the open gate, down the stairs, and into the dungeon. A pair of guards nods as I pass them, and I let free a humorless grin. This will do as a distraction.

“Please, my prince, I did not do those things she accused me of. You know how they are—loose with their skirts, free with their affections until they are found out by their husbands. And then they claimed he forced himself on them.”

“I see,” Hart drawls. To the untrained ear, it might sound like understanding and leniency, but Hart embodies the term “calm before the storm.”

I pass the dark, dank cells filled with the worst of society. Some reach through their cages to plead for mercy, but I have none. Any softness within me died when the only woman I’ll ever love perished.

“You aren’t starting the party without me, are you?” I say as I come to the end of the row.

Hart folds his arms and leans against a post in the center of the circular room, decorated with notches from Theo’s ax.

He lifts an eyebrow and smirks. We might appear to be opposites, but we are intrinsically the same—we just shield our darkness in different ways.

No one grows up under the tyrannical rule of our now-dead father and comes out unscathed. It’s the stuff nightmares are made of.

He flicks his gaze to the cell beside me. He wants a fight, one that ends with bloodshed, desperate for the pain to drown out the darkness, if only for a tempo’s reprieve.

“Ah, my prince, you pardon the innocent on your brother’s coronation,” a man decides as he shifts into the flickering firelight.

“What crime are you accused of?” I ask. It doesn’t matter. Not really. But I enjoy giving them a spark of hope while they plead their case. It makes the beat down sweeter.

The guy is huge, both in height and breadth. He runs tattooed hands over his shaved head and meets my steady gaze. “My wife was pregnant with another’s spawn.”

Spawn? He deserves to die for that alone.

“I understand the suffering that may have caused,” I answer.

He bobs his head. “So I did what a real man would do.”

Realize she was never the woman for you and leave? Doubtful. “Of course.”

“She regretted the lies moments before she took her last breath,” he says with a wistful look. “It was bliss.”

The punch to my gut is visceral. He stole the lives of not one, but two souls because she strayed?

“How do you know it was another?” Hart asks.

“Because we tried for years to conceive to no avail, and then out of the blue she is with child. It didn’t add up.”

Fuck me. He threw away his family because he thought she may have found love in another’s arms?

“Did she confirm it?” I wonder.

He curls his lip. “Not even with her dying breath.”

I shake my head.

“She deserved it,” the other guy in the cell next to his agrees. “They all do. Fickle, dangerous creatures.”

“Guards, release these two prisoners from their cells,” Hart calls out, making me grin. Yes, brother. This is exactly what we need.

One guard shuffles along the corridor. The rest of the prisoners are quiet, sensing the danger and wanting no part of it.

He twists the key in each of their cells and backs up, but doesn’t retreat as his hand grazes the pommel of his sword.

He’s ready to jump in should his new king become overwhelmed by these two criminals.

Hart scowls but doesn’t bark at him for doing his job.

The guy Hart picked out is short but strong, built with muscle and power. He could overpower most females, and from his words, doesn’t hesitate to use that strength against them.

He bows to Hart as my target joins us with a quick glance at the guard blocking his escape route.

Hart remains relaxed, unthreatened, sure of his ability. As he should be.

“Are we free?” Hart’s guy checks.

Hart’s lip curls. “Sure.”

His shoulders relax, and he reaches to grasp Hart’s arm. “You’ll make a fine king.”

Hart moves so fast it’s a blur, breaking the criminal’s wrist with an audible snap.

He screams in agony, and the larger guy freezes, realizing this is an execution, not the bid for freedom he was hoping for.

He takes a step backward toward his cell, and I shake my head, a smile curling my lips. We can’t have that now, can we?

The guard expects my command and moves to slam the cell door closed, locking the guy in with me.

I wiggle my fingers at him. “Are you going to beg like your pregnant wife? Or squeal like the cowardly pig you are?” I take a step toward him.

Hart is in full destruction mode, playing with his kill much like the criminal played with a woman’s body that he had no right to.

“Neither, Prince Malachi,” he growls.

Good. It’s more fun if they fight back.

I lose myself in the red haze, my fists connecting with flesh, arcs of coppery blood spraying across the cell.

The other prisoners shrink back into the shadows, the whites of their eyes glowing with their terror, while the guards keep watch without interfering.

This isn’t a swift execution; it’s a slow destruction, a dismantling of every lie and hurt they’ve inflicted on others.

When the haze lifts, I find the men broken in pieces on the stone floor, my chest rising and falling as the vestiges of adrenaline fade from my veins.

And for a perfect moment, the pain dissipates under the cloak of victory before the hollowness creeps back inside.

But I’ll hold on to it and hope that one diurnal, I’ll wake up to find it will have expanded beyond a single moment to two, and then three.

That’s how you beat grief. You can’t hurry it along or bully it into compliance.

Perhaps when it comes to losing Daphne Stone, all we will get is a moment.